This invention relates to vehicles in general and in particular to lawn and garden tractors. Lawn and garden tractors typically have a frame supporting various components of the vehicle and have a prime mover for powering the vehicle. The prime mover powers and drives two or more wheels of the vehicle. Conventional lawn and garden tractors have four wheels—two front wheels and two rear wheels. Conventional lawn and garden tractors typically have a steering mechanism that steers the two front wheels to alter the direction of vehicle travel. Certain lawn and garden tractors have four steered wheels instead of two to provide a tighter turning radius. However, lawn and garden tractors with four steered wheels are more expensive than lawn and garden tractors with two steered wheels.
Other “zero-turn” lawn and garden tractors control the direction of vehicle travel by altering the speed and direction of rotation of the independently-driven pair of rear wheels, which may be used to allow such vehicles to make small or “zero” radius turns. Such zero-turn radius tractors are typically capable of turning around a center point that is located in line with the axis of rotation of the rear wheels and in between the outer sides of the two rear wheels. These zero-turn tractors typically have a pair of front casters, but in some such vehicles the front wheels are actively steered as well. In other similarly controlled zero-turn vehicles, the front wheels are the independently-driven pair of wheels. Such vehicles may have a pair of steered or non-steered rear wheels, a pair of rear casters or a single rear caster.
Lawn and garden tractors typically have two or more rotatable cutting blades, which are typically driven by the prime mover. The cutting blades are typically housed within a deck. The size and shape of the deck typically approximates the area of the rotational footprint of the cutting blades. In conventional lawn and garden tractors, the deck and the cutting blades are positioned between the set of front wheels and the set of rear wheels. Typical cutting blade configurations have either two or three full size cutting blades positioned adjacent one another across the width of the vehicle to create a cutting path. The width of the cutting path created by the cutting blades is typically similar to or slightly larger than the width of the wheelbase of the vehicle.
Certain lawn and garden tractors also have one or more collectors for collecting clippings created by the cutting blades. In some such lawn and garden tractors, the collector or collectors are attached to the deck such that the motion of the cutting blades propels the clippings into the collector(s). Some such lawn and garden tractors have a side discharge collector that is attached to a side of the deck and extends outward from the vehicle beyond the wheel base of the vehicle. This configuration creates a disadvantage by increasing the width of the vehicle, thereby making it more difficult to navigate around objects or through narrow paths. Side-discharge configurations also have a disadvantage of creating windrows, which are rows of dropped clippings, when the direction of vehicle travel is reversed.
In other such lawn and garden tractors, the collector is mounted rearward of the rear wheels. In tractors in which the deck is positioned between the front and the rear wheels, this rear-mount configuration requires a lengthy collector chute to connect the deck to the collector. The use of a lengthy chute increases the likelihood that the clippings will lose momentum and fall to the ground prior to reaching the collector, or that they will clog the collector chute.